DT 4 / 2009

Eva Joly is preparing to return to France, where she will run as Green Party candidate for the EU Parliament. During her final days in Norway, she spoke to Development Today, reflecting on the role of the World Bank and multinationals in the tax havens debate, and other unfinished business.

Last December, following a critical study published in The Lancet suggesting that GAVI had overpaid countries for child immunisation by USD 140 million, GAVI froze its payment scheme. Now GAVI has decided to resume payments. But the study’s authors say their key finding remains unaddressed.

Danish Development Minister Ulla Tørnæs often says the private sector has top priority in development assistance. Yet since 2005, she has drawn DKK 1.2 billion from the aid-financed risk capital fund IFU to fund initiatives at home.

SEKAB has made changes in the environmental study of the Bagamoyo biofuel plantation project in Tanzania without consulting the Swedish firm Orgut that wrote the original report. SEKAB submitted the report to Tanzanian authorities last December with Orgut’s name on it. Orgut now disowns the SEKAB report.